Spatial effects of alpine hydro energy infrastructures on the urban landscape

Gunnar Ploner introduces interdisciplinary master course at Studio1, Faculty of Architecture, University of Innsbruck.

The studio is a collaboration between geography and architecture and focuses on the integration of GIS systems into spatial planning. In the first part of the course students will gain familiarity in working with GIS software while in the second part they will apply GIS tools in the course of a geo-spatial analysis of hydro power infrastructures within the Alps.

(1) The GIS Lab: As the amount of collected information increases rapidly the availability of precise data enables new possibilities in researching and planning urban environments and landscapes. A geographic information system (GIS) is a system that integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares, and displays geographic information for informing decision making. GIS gives data meaning through place. It allows us to observe how cities function. GIS exposes complex processes and dynamics (social, political, economical) taking place in the city. If built physical form is the hardware, GIS and geospatial data reveal the software that operate it.

(2) The Research Lab: Hydro power infrastructures are a common feature within the modern alpine landscape. Although often far away from urban regions these infrastructures are crucial components of the global urban network and serve the energetic needs of the modern city.

LURG launches interdisciplinary urban development competition | Call for participation

guten TAG Innsbruck is an interdisciplinary platform for urban development that critically examines the contemporary condition of the urban landscape of the city of Innsbruck. The competition guten TAG Innsbruck is open to the public and transforms and activates abandoned sites and left-over spaces into high-potential urban sites . Through an interdisciplinary approach the competition aims to establish new linkages within the urban field and to contribute to a plural and diverse urban environment.

Team: Stefan Brabetz, Gerald Haselwanter, Gunnar Ploner

The project is awarded the Stadtpotenziale 2013 Award of the City of Innsbruck and is supportded by the Cultural Department of the Federal State Government of Tyrol.

For more information please see: www.gutentaginnsbruck.com

Project Lagos exhibited at Potenziale 2 at the Center for Architecture Tyrol/AUT

Gunnar Ploner´s project “Lagos – Towards an emergent ecological approach to urbanism” is exhibited at Potenziale 2 at the AUT – Architektur und Tirol. The exhibition shows selected projects developed at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Innsbruck and aims to give an overview of the contemporary architectural discourse at the faculty.

High Speed Urbanism in Lagos | publicated in Potenziale 2 by Studio1 – Stefano de Martino

High Speed Urbanism in Lagos is publicated in the Potenziale 2 magazine of the Institute of Design Studio1 – Stefano de Martino.

The aim of the project „LAGOS“ is to develop a sense for responsive urban planning methods which are initiating, gradually mediating and equalizing disparate forces in complex urban fields. Introducing a loop strategy for urban planning instead of static top-down urban planning methods, the project proposes possibilities for various bottom-up interventions across different scales. The focus lies on the production of control- and guidable bottom up urban conditions.

Activated from the extreme forces of social, cultural, economic and political influences, spaces, programs and functions are in a constant state of flux. Resulting from these forces, a dynamic urban field is emerging, which continuously generates and reorganizes spatial configurations. Sites and spaces construct a hybrid, dynamic system with fluid characteristics. A changing set of overlapping and intersecting programs and functions transforms surfaces and generate luminal spaces.

To respond to high speed urban dynamics and to provide an immediate solution, a flexible and lightweight reactive system is needed which considers the coexistence of multiple, simultaneous processes. Short planning and construction periods, low production and building costs as well as a resourceful use of urban space are mandatory prerequisites for an immediate and sustainable planning solution. The multidimensional approach seeks to strengthen performing linkages, relations and interferences of space and programs through intervening across different scales and using existing structures.

The creation of various types of market spaces with elastic and permeable qualities depending on site specific environmental conditions and the provison of public property for informal activities are essential components. Within a given framework, it should still be possible that space can be created and adapted individually and organically to meet individual economic and social needs. The integration into the environment and the adaption to local conditions and traditions creates responsiveness to the needs of a changing social and functional world, attaching to the continuity of locality, space and time.

Mittelmeerland – Mapping the Mediterranean published at Abitare

Mittelmeerland is an urban research project curated by AA investigating the future of the Mediterranean as a ‘territory’ of water. Gunnar Ploner contributed to the project of Medine Altiok and Stephanie Tunka as a guest tutor.

Featured Work in the publication Glatt – From Suburb to City by the ETH Zürich

Gunnar Ploners work for the future urban development of the metropolitean region of Zurich is featured in the book Glatt – From Suburb to City by the ETH Zurich. The work was developed in the course of  the ETH Summer Academy.

LURG receives Stadtpotenziale Award of the City of Innsbruck

The Stadtpotenziale Award is an annually award granted by the City of Innsbruck focusing on projects addressing social and cultural issues of urban space within Innsbruck.

The project was developed by the design team Stefan Brabetz, Gerald Haselwanter and Gunnar Ploner.

Guest Critic at Studio Kiril de Lancastre Jedenov

Gunnar Ploner is guest critic at Studio Kiril de Lancastre Jedenov at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Innsbruck.

Guest Critic at Studio Karen Lohrmann Environments and Organizations | Abandonment

Gunnar Ploner is invited guest critic to the final presentation of the Studio of Karen Lohrmann at the Faculty of Architecture in Innsbruck.

Course description: Abandonment is a multifaceted phenomenon, heavily denied if not undefined. This seminar studies the notion of abandonment as the result of urban, cultural and social flux. Touching on issues of entropy, decay and devaluation in the context of the humanities, geography, cultural and urban studies, the seminar seeks to highlight a currently most actual phenomenon of our cultural landscapes. Cross-disciplinary research will set the framework for direct and applied translations as (re)action, adaption and transformation in locations to be identified during the process of the semester.

Course objective: Environments are an art form. As such environments are rooted in North American mid-century art movements such as Pop Art and Happenings. Environments combine an artistic action or installation with a space, surrounding or location. This course will focus on the locational and the thematic, or critical, of Environments. We will review the origin of this movement and juxtapose its effect, message and manifestations with actual tendencies in spatial practices.

On-Site Urban Investigation Algiers

In the course of teaching at the AA-Visiting School Algiers Gunnar Ploner is conducting an on-site investigation at El Harrach, a rapidly changing urban environment in Algiers. The site is a mix of different typological entities and is characterized by the simultaneous presence of heavy industry, high density social housing, a huge shopping mall, touristic buildings, the construction of the great mosque of Algiers, vacant industrial buildings and a highly polluted river. This landscape is glued together by a network of various transportation infrastructures.